Robert Hurst is the author of The Art of [Urban] Cycling, The Art of Mountain Biking: Singletrack Skills for All Riders, The Cyclist's Manifesto, Best Bike Rides Denver and Boulder, Road Biking Colorado's Front Range, Mountain Biking Colorado's San Juan Mountains: Durango and Telluride, and The Bicycle Commuter's Handbook.

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man’s moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it?

Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?

-- Twain

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…Over the past 12 months, it has enabled the Justice Department and its partners to file 285 federal criminal indictments and informations against 530 defendants for allegedly victimizing more than 73,000 American homeowners – and inflicting losses in excess of $1 billion.

…Over the past 12 months, it has enabled the Justice Department and its partners to file federal criminal charges against 107 defendants for allegedly victimizing more than 17,185 American homeowners – and inflicting losses in excess of $95 million.

WASHINGTON D.C. (AFP) — The U.S. Justice Department filed a formal complaint Tuesday against Lance Armstrong, saying the doping-disgraced cyclist and team owners defrauded the U.S. Postal Service of sponsorship money.

[…]

Elliot Peters, Armstrong’s attorney, disputed whether the USPS suffered any damage as a result of its 1998-2004 sponsorship of the team.

“The DOJ’s complaint against Lance Armstrong is opportunistic and insincere,” Peters said in a statement sent to AFP. “The U.S. Postal Service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship of the cycling team. Its own studies repeatedly and conclusively prove this. The USPS was never the victim of fraud.

via Neil Barofsky (former Inspector General of TARP) and New Republic:

Some perspective: HSBC sent more than $800 million in bulk cash from Mexico to the United States, a good chunk of which apparently represented proceeds from some of the most notorious Colombian drug cartels. As someone who tried the first narcotics money laundering case involving extradition from Colombia, let me assure you that this is a lot of money, the discovery of which usually generates vigorous prosecutions and lengthy prison sentences. And it wasn’t HSBC’s only dirty business: There were also hundreds of millions of more dollars of illegally disguised transactions with rogue nations such as Iran and Sudan.

Why no criminal charges? Why instead only some remedial measures and a “historical” fine that can be measured in weeks — not years — of earnings? It certainly wasn’t for lack of evidence. No, instead the government determined that HSBC is not only too big to fail, but also too big to jail. As the New York Times first reported, even though there were strong voices within DOJ pushing for criminal charges, the big banks’ best friends within the government (the Treasury Department, of course, and other unnamed regulators) were too fearful that an indictment could destabilize the global financial system. Yes, it’s 2008 all over again. In the name of systemic stability, a megabank again escapes accountability for its actions, rescued by compliant officials.

A 1972 article notes a ‘thin layer’ of Pu-239 contamination. I suppose that’s good news of a sort. The operators of Rocky Flats, however, went on to illegally incinerate and dump waste at least through 1989, when the plant was raided by the FBI.

Measurements of 239Pu and 90Sr in the top 1 cm surface layer of soils show that in this layer the 239Pu contamination in offsite areas just east of the Rocky Flats plant ranges up to hundreds of times that from nuclear tests. In the more densely populated areas of Denver the Pu contamination level in surface soils is several times fallout.